India, on Wednesday, slammed Pakistan and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for raising the Kashmir issue at the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
“It has become a habit for Pakistan to misuse the platforms provided by the council to propagate its false and malicious propaganda against India,” Pawan Badhe, first secretary in India’s permanent mission in Geneva, said. He exercised India’s ‘right to reply’ after Pakistan and the OIC accused Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi of human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Pakistan has been globally recognised as a country openly supporting, training, financing and arming terrorists, including UN proscribed terrorists as a matter of state policy,” Badhe added. “The relevant multilateral institutions have been raising serious concerns on its failure to stop terror financing and lack of effective actions against terror entities,” he said.
Badhe further noted, “The council is aware of Pakistan’s attempts to divert the council’s attention from serious human rights violations being perpetrated by its government, including in the territories occupied by it. India, as not only the world’s largest democracy but a robustly functional and vibrant one, does not need lessons from a failed state like Pakistan, which is the epicentre of terrorism and worst abuser of human rights.”
Next, the Indian diplomat accused the Pakistani government, led by PM Imran Khan, of failing to protect the rights of minorities, including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and Ahmadiyas, and of allowing incidents of violence to take place with impunity. “Thousands of women and girls from minority communities have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan and its occupied territories. Pakistan has been engaged in systematic persecution, forced conversions, targeted killings, sectarian violence and faith-based discrimination against its ethnic and religious minorities,” Badhe said.
The Indian diplomat also highlighted the suppression of dissenting voices of human rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and activists in Pakistan with the government’s help. “Enforced disappearances, Extrajudicial killings, murders and abductions have been used as a tool for subjugation and to muzzle any form of dissent or criticism. The impunity with which such abuses have been carried out exposes the hollowness of Pakistan’s commitment to human rights,” he said.
In addition, Badhe hit back at the OIC for interfering in India’s internal matters. “The OIC has helplessly allowed itself to be held hostage by Pakistan, which holds the chairmanship of their Geneva Chapter, to subserve its agenda. It’s for the members of the OIC to decide if it is in their interest to allow Pakistan to do so,” he said.
India Slams Pakistan, OIC For Raising Kashmir Issue at UNHRC
India slammed Pakistan and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for discussing human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir at the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
September 16, 2021
SOURCE: FREE PRESS JOURNAL